


Act Of Contrition

by musicforswimming



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Catholic Character, Daddy Issues, Father-Daughter Relationship, Gen, Jossed, Original Character Death(s), POV Mary Winchester, Pre-Series, Young Mary Winchester, spn_xx challenge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-08-15
Updated: 2007-08-15
Packaged: 2017-10-02 06:31:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,023
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3550
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/musicforswimming/pseuds/musicforswimming
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mary knew demons long before she knew John Winchester.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Act Of Contrition

**Author's Note:**

> Pre-series; also, written prior to "In The Beginning", and thus jossed by it (although not as much as I would've expected it to be). Written for the spn_xx challenge on LJ: the prompt was "'Hail Mary'. Could be one of the boys learning the prayer, or reciting it, or thinking about the name in relation to their mother. Or, you know, could be anything else."

"Hey, Mary?" Carol said when she got back from newspaper. "Your Dad called." She pointed to Mary's bed, and for a second Mary wondered what the heck was so neat _there_, and then she saw that there was a note on her bed. Presumably the message that had been taken for her from her Dad.

"Oh," she said, and sat down, and checked the number before folding the paper up and stuffing it in her pocket. "Okay."  
   
   
   
   
The murders were all over the country by now. The stories about them anyway, not the murders themselves; those just stayed in Boston. The dorms were controlled carefully, more carefully than normal, and she woke up in the night soaking wet when Carol would leave the window open after sneaking back in and then going to brush her teeth and the rain -- or, later in autumn, the snow -- would get in. But they'd laugh about it.

Dad called a few more times, and then a couple more times after that, and each time she'd say she just missed him, she saw him all the time but he was always forgetting stuff to tell her then and having to call back. She didn't think anyone believed her, but no one actually said anything.

The chapels and churches were more crowded than usual, it seemed to her. People were panicking, so they went to God.

Mary slept in on Sunday mornings.  
   
   
   
   
She had a bad dream one night, sleeping at Jimmy's but not _with_ Jimmy, because he'd given up after a few tries, for tonight anyway. Pieces of the darkness threw themselves against the window and voices called to her. She kept waking up and falling back asleep and she wasn't entirely sure what was real after a few rounds of that.

Carol was dead when she got back to their room in the morning. Blood was soaking the lower half of her bed. She looked, Mary noted as the police led her away, because after all she didn't need to see that, as though she had been frightened when she died, scared to death. Well, except for the gaping wound between her thighs, looked like something had been trying to split her in half from the bottom up.  
   
   
   
   
He called a few more times, even at the new dorm they'd moved her into, because empty rooms were still pretty hard to come by but of course they were sympathetic to her _situation_. Finally she called him back, mostly to tell him to stop calling.

"Please, Mary. Please. I gotta talk to you."

Mary wanted to say a lot of things, like he'd had eighteen years of her living at home to try and talk to her, but he was always off on his little trips. She didn't say any of them, though; she tried to remember a little bit of the patience and mercy and all that other crud they'd taught her at The School of Saint Eustachius back in Chicago.

It wasn't really that, though, it was more the fact that he would probably keep calling her so she may as well just shut him up and get him gone.

"Okay," she said. "But stop calling me, and don't come to my school, okay? Just -- there's a diner near here. I'll meet you there."

She only wondered for a little while which one of the guys was him; there weren't many people here and only one of them could possibly be Charlie Santiago, aka Mary's Good for Nothing Bum of a Father, who went off God Knew Where for weeks at a time, usually longer because he and Ma would have screaming fights over the phone when he bothered to call, and who could blame him for not wanting to come home to that. Why bother working at these things, right?

He waved to her, and she sat down, and he must've seen that she was apprehensive about this whole thing, to say the least, because he toned down the enthusiasm a little. "Mary," he said, and reached for her. She was afraid that he was going to hug her, and sat down on the other side of the table and kept her hands very close so that he couldn't try to hold or even shake one of them.

"Hi." She ordered tea, and stared at the menu without actually bothering to read it.

Sometimes he would start talking, and he asked her all the usual like how's school and oh, you're on the newspaper, that's swell, and of course eventually came I heard about your roommate, I'm sorry. Mary answered as quickly as she could and poured sugar into her tea, and just grunted when Carol came up.

"Why are you here?" It took her a long time to ask it; she should've asked it earlier and saved them both all the trouble of pretending to be interested in what she did on the FreeP's staff.

After that, he was silent for awhile. She sipped her tea and kept looking at the table instead of at him.

"There've been these murders the past few months." His voice was real quiet now.

"Yeah. I sorta heard about them." There were some other choice things she could say, but she didn't, she just sipped her tea and looked past his left ear at the window. It was gonna be dark in another hour; the solstice was still a couple of weeks off, which meant there were finals to get through first.

"Sure. Christ, sorry, I'm sorry. It's -- sort of, yeah, it's kind of about that. But it's not just that, not just what you're thinking. I need your help, Mary."

"Oh my god." For the first time -- well, not quite, but almost; it may as well have been -- since they'd sat down together, she looked up at him. "Oh my _God_."

"That's blasphemy," he said, and frowned. "You really did get as far from that school as you could, didn't you?"

"Yeah, well, you'd know about getting as far away from things as you can, wouldn't you?"

"What is _that_ supposed to mean, Mary?"

It made her angry then, hearing him say her name like that, like she owed him something. "I mean you sure as heck got out while the getting was good, didn't you? And Ma told me all about your stories, you know, what you said you were doing -- chasing demons or something."

"_Hunting_ demons."

"Oh, because it really makes a big difference, doesn't it? Why wouldn't you just tell her the truth? Or me? Unless you actually believe that stuff, in which case -- "

"It's true, Mary. I don't have to believe it because it's true. That was why I was gone. I'm sorry, Mary, I swear, but I couldn't take you and your mother away from your lives; that was no life for a little girl like you, and..."

Mary tapped her spoon on the table a few times, then settled for scratching it along through the patina of oily something-or-other that coated the surface.

"How often do you go to Mass these days?" he asked her.

She looked up again at last; she couldn't help herself. He was only trying a different tack, she knew that, but she looked up anyway. She hadn't told anyone here she had ever been Catholic in the first place, even. Plenty of non-Catholics went to Catholic schools, it wasn't so weird for her have gone to Saint E's. Not that she'd be a fish out of water, what with this being Boston and all, but it wasn't what she was now; she told herself that all the time. When Carol went to the clinic, Mary held her hand, and she and Jimmy hadn't got to the fornicating yet but she'd definitely had impure thoughts, and basically, the Church wouldn't want her now, she figured, anyway, not that she was interested in going back.

"That often?" he asked, after she blinked at him a few times, and laughed, or tried to, but even seeing how hard he was trying just made her angry. "I might've thought -- some people, they have things like this happen to them -- "

That was it, that was _it_. He was not going to use Carol as something to get her back in his good graces, or guilt her into anything; she'd had enough of that from the sisters back at school. "Look, not that it's any of your business -- "

"It is, Mary. God, believe me, it is."

"No it's _not_." She didn't look up from her tea. She didn't touch it, and it had probably gone cold by now, or at least lukewarm, but she didn't touch it and she didn't look up from it. "You show up here with stories you probably got from some hobo, some bum or hitchhiker you picked up -- "

"As I recall, you didn't -- "

"How I got to school isn't any of your business, Daddy." It was the first time she had called him that, the first time she had called him anything, and she looked away as quickly as she had looked up, looked out the window at the snow that was flinging itself against the glass and dizzying away just as quickly, trying to cram as much movement as possible before it was fell to the road to melt. "Had to get to Boston somehow," she added, sipping her tea. It wasn't as cold as she expected.

"Please, Mary." It was the kind of thing should've gone with him holding her hand, but he didn't touch her.

That helped, somehow.  
   
   
   
   
Only women could see it, was his operating theory, maybe only young women, since those were all the victims. She kept the gun he gave her under her bed, though she was pretty sure the dorm would frown on it if they knew. It didn't matter, because she wasn't in her room much. She stayed there as little as possible. It wasn't any bad memories or shit like that; she was just busy, between writing for the Daily Free Press, and seeing Jimmy who _still_ wouldn't give up so she was at least sleeping in her room more, and parking herself in the library for hours at a time to draft up papers, and oh yeah, going to every church in the greater Boston area with her father at all hours.

It wasn't so bad, sleeping in the car; kept her from worrying that they were going to hit something or slide down into a ditch and burst into flames suddenly. And her father's stories were enthralling, even she had to admit that. He'd seen the country, he'd even seen the world, since he'd gone all over during the war -- "That's when I got into the business," he explained to her. "In Europe, during the war. Just before I met your mother." She'd never heard that much of the story, even; she'd only known that Ma had been a nurse.

When they were Catholic churches, her father would go to Confession after they were done. Mary sat in the car and waited for him. It was spiteful and she wasn't even sure what point she was making, but it didn't matter; she did it anyhow.

Jimmy was fucking Nancy King when Mary came over to his place one night after studying. She was going to surprise him, and she did, which she guessed was something. They screamed at each other a lot, and he said that she was too busy with her _Daddy_ to think of him, and her _newspaper_, and her _papers_, and he had his _needs_. She punched him when he started on that, and that shut him up pretty well.

Until she stopped crying, Mary stayed in the library. Then she stayed another hour because she had a paper to finish for American Literature anyhow. She'd only got a C on her last one, since she'd been too busy listening to her father talk about tackling a Hokhoku with Debbie Harvelle ("Debbie's got a son about your age, you know"), and she had to keep her grades up if she wanted to keep her scholarship.

It was late when she finally got back to the dorms, but she called him anyway, because she knew he'd be up. Her father didn't sleep well. "I need to talk to you," Mary said. "At the diner."

"Is something wrong, honey?" She hadn't woken him up, she could hear it in his voice, which was clear of any sleepiness.

"No." There wasn't really anything wrong, actually, not now, because she'd figured it all out. "I've just got something I been thinking about."

"I think I got something," he'd barely let her finish, and she didn't know if he'd even heard her. "I called this priest, and I think I got something, I really do."

"Okay," she said. There wasn't really much you could say to that, after all. "Tomorrow, then. I'm tired. I've been working on a paper for a couple of hours."

"Oh." He was disappointed. She couldn't take it, though, she really couldn't, not tonight. She was gonna have bad dreams anyway, more of those dreams about the living darkness. The gun was under her pillow now, instead of under her bed. "Okay, then. Tomorrow. Six o'clock?"

"Yeah. Fine." The phone gave a little echo of a ding as she hung it up again. Anyway, she didn't care what he thought, whether she was disappointing him. Not like he'd given her so very much to be proud of himself, had he?  
   
   
   
   
"I think we got it this time, Mary." Charlie Santiago's face was bright, nearly the only thing that was in the darkness. "Got a priest at a little church outside the city, he says there's something that's been -- "

"I want you gone." She didn't go inside the diner this time, didn't say anything besides that. She put her hands in her pockets and it was only with a lot of effort that she managed not to look at anything at all besides him.

"What are you -- "

"You heard me." Mary folded her arms across her chest, tight as she could although that wasn't very tight what with the big heavy winter coat and the gloves. She'd thought about this right after she'd finished crying and right before she'd started her paper. "I want you out of town. I don't care about this, I don't care about your stories, I shouldn't have let you fool me, I just wanted -- I just want you gone now." She didn't know what she had been about to say. Yes she did; she had been about to tell him how she had just wanted him to be her father.

"It's not that simple, Mary, you know it's -- "

"No, I don't. And I don't see that it's not, anyhow. I see you ruining my life. I want you _gone_, do you understand me? You got nothing to prove those murders were anything like what you say they were. As far as I'm concerned, you're crazy." Now the words just kept coming, now she couldn't stop herself even if she'd wanted to. She did, a little, and she ached and ached and ached as she said them but she said them anyway, because there was heat with the pain, heat in her heart and God knew that was in short supply these days, as the world got colder and darker. "You want to keep poking around at this, fine, but you stay the hell away from me and my school."

He closed his mouth and looked away, but still didn't move. She thought maybe she should, that she should just walk away right now, but she didn't, yet, either, because he was her father and maybe he'd still have something to say, something that would make up for it all.

At last, he unzipped his jacket a little and tugged at something. "Here," he said, pulling a rosary over his head and putting it over hers. "Please, just promise me you'll keep that on."

"Yeah," she said. "Fine." She said it like that, all short and cold, just to hurt him, or at least to make sure he knew the doors were shut, and she felt like a real cunt afterwards, but she couldn't bring herself to say sorry, either, because she really wasn't.

Dad looked like he was ready to say something else, but he didn't, he didn't say anything. He just turned around and walked back to his truck.

She stood under the streetlight and watched him drive off, until only a few more lights flitted through the darkness outside her own lit bubble.  
   
   
   
   
Mary woke up that night from another bad dream, and something was cold and wet on the sheets. Carol had left the windows open again, and it was snowing, what the hell was wrong with her, Mary didn't know.

Then she remembered Carol ripped open from the stomach down, and she realized that something was burning in her hand. The lamp, turned on, revealed that she was clutching the crucifix, that she had burned herself with it. There was a little imprint of a cross on her palm, and if you looked closely you could see a little spots of Jesus's features too. She rolled over, and saw her father's head on the pillow. The cold wet something was his blood, soaking through the sheets, and the window was closed and something dark was flinging itself against the glass.  
   
   
   
   
She went back to the last church that night, the one her father had been so excited about. The address was in the car -- "Does this mean anything to you?" the police asked.

"It's just a church. He knew the priest, I think."

Things threw themselves at the window as she drove, and she kept her eyes wide open and didn't look at them, just kept her eyes on the little bit of road visible between the raging pieces of darkness and the flimsy little snowflakes that added up to a shroud over the land. How anyone could've thought this would make a good place for their City on a Hill, she couldn't imagine.

Mary's jaw hurt from being clenched when she got there, and she kept the gun beside her, even though this thing had no form -- _yet_, something told her, _not yet_.

The darkness started screaming at her as soon as she sat down, and something lurched out of it, out of the shadows that closed in around her. They weren't solid, she knew that, they didn't have the power for it, only a small thing, something that would be easy enough to kill once they chose to be solid.

Then her father's body became clearly the thing that was moving, with a slavering new head on its shoulders.

She shot it once, in the heart, and felt something black and thick splatter her. It was her father's new blood, she thought dimly; this thing had recreated it entirely, for his hands had long black nails that were more like claws than nails. Made him in its own image if you would, which she would for the moment.

Still laughing and screaming at her, it fell to the ground. There were a thousand names coming from its gaping, grinning mouth. She thought some of them might've been Latin, but it seemed to have learned English quickly enough for having only been loose in Boston a few weeks now. Mary took the crucifix from around her neck and knelt down beside it.

It was her favorite when she was little. Sure, there were a million other Marys -- or was it Maries? -- but she'd had a _feeling_, she'd just known she was _special_.

Get in fucking line.

But it was her favorite, and it came to her first now, as she pressed the crucifix against the creature's forehead, and heard it scream. "Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee." Its blood was already on her hands -- it must've been mildly acidic; it burned slightly, or maybe it was basic, it was something, anyway -- and now she was just adding insult to injury -- now she was just being cruel.

Cruel, she thought as she prayed, like Salome; cruel, she thought, like the Son-less Father.

"Holy Mary," she said, and said it again, and stomped on the creature again. "Holy Mary," she said a third time, or maybe a fourth. "Mother of God, pray for us sinners." It was snarling and moaning, the one turning into the other, and she kicked it once more as she retrieved her shotgun and knelt down beside it.

"Say it with me," she said.

It screeched at her, and there were words out of the darkness and the candles guttered. _LET ME GO YOU FUCKING WHORE AND I'LL_

"This is a house of God," she said quietly. "And right now, I am His fist. Hail Mary."

_WHORE FUCKING SLUT_

"Full of grace."

_FUCKING TEAR YOU TO PIECES_

"The Lord is with thee."

_LITTLE USELESS SLUT_

"Blessed art thou amongst women,"

_BITCH WHORE MONSTER_

"and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus."

_BITCH FILTHY WHORE JUST FUCKING LET ME_

"Holy Mary, Mother of God." It was screaming and she screamed too, but she managed to make words out of the screams, now as the darkness strangled at her and flailed beneath her foot, and the candles went out around her. "Pray for us sinners."

_NOW_ "Now" _AND AT THE HOUR OF OUR DEATHS_ "and at the hour of our deaths."

The shot was swallowed by the darkness and the snow outside. Mary lit the candles herself, all over again, and realized as she sat down and looked up at Christ on the cross before her that her eyes were already sore from crying.  
   
   
   
   
"It's gone, Father," she said, when the doors opened to let in what little light could come of a morning where snow still fell fast and thick outside.

A smile blossomed on the old man's face, the red feathers of a cardinal in the middle of the snow, though he was really pretty pale; closer to the snow himself than the cardinal. She was too tired to do anything as he cupped her face in his hands. "Thank you, child," he said, and seemed much smaller as he said it, as he was grateful. Maybe she just wasn't used to that from the Church. "Thank you."

"It was nothing." It wasn't, it wasn't nothing by a long shot. She didn't want him asking her things, though. She didn't want him pushing her to things. She didn't want any of this, and she never had; that was the whole point. There was doubtless something to be said here about fathers pushing one to things, but she was too tired to tease it out of the wool.

He said something about humility and God's grace, and she stared at a statue of the Virgin -- was it an icon, if it was in church? She couldn't remember, not exactly. She looked like she was sleeping.

That he had stopped talking registered suddenly. Mary snapped out of it. "I'd like to confess."

"What?" he asked.

"I'd like to confess, Father," she said. "Please."

He didn't make much of this, which was something to his credit, she guessed. He pointed in the right direction, though, which was something against him, but it's not like he could know how many hours she had been here already. That was just one of many things she could tell him, she supposed, already wondering what the hell had made her say something like that.

She crossed herself, and kept looking at the wood her hands were resting on, and said it. "In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, my last confession was -- " Mary had to stop to think, which was probably enough of an indicator of sin in and of itself. " -- Six years ago."

There was nothing to be heard besides the priest's quiet breath and her own, her heart beating blind against the darkness all around.


End file.
